


But Why Do You Have To Be Like This?

by Anonymous



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Meta, proshipping - Freeform, venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 23:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Why can't you just be normal?!" -- The Babadook (2014)
Collections: Anonymous





	But Why Do You Have To Be Like This?

If I could give one piece of advice to young fans, in the year 2021, it would be this: if you don't understand why you're into a certain kind of dark content, a certain kind of unhealthy ship—make a side account for it and don't ever talk about it under your main "face". Because by the time you figure out why you like it, it's already too late. Even if you want to keep your trauma private, it's too late. Everybody knows, because everybody knows about Why People Like Certain Fantasies. If it doesn't match up to your trauma exactly, people will assume anyway, and you can't correct them without revealing what did happen to you.

Do you want to keep your explicit work and talk separate from your main identity, because you talk to your friends on main and as much as you were raised by fandom, you _just don't want to tell your friends about your every sexual fantasy_? You can try that. You can keep worrying about how many of them would be disgusted if they knew. You can block the ones who reveal they would be disgusted, and feel bad for not trying to explain yourself. You can wish for the chance to explain yourself even though you know the chances are good they'll just consider you an incestuous-pedophile-slash-potential-rapist. It's probably best just to block them and let them be hurt when they notice. At the very least it's safer for you.

When I was younger, fandom was the only place I felt somewhat normal. I watched other people for a long time, and eventually I started to make content and express myself. I knew there was still bullying inside of fandom, but it felt like a place that had places inside it for people to be strange together. Surrounded by people who weren't like me, but who maybe weren't as much _like other people_ as most people in the world, I did find small places that made me feel like my thoughts and my interests weren't as laughable as my real life made them feel. Now, most of the small places are gone. Fandom is still for the freaks, but now it's also for anyone else.

You don't have to invest your time and energy into something "uncool" to enter fandom anymore. There's no entry fee. And for a lot of the freaks who might not have found it otherwise, that's good. But it means so _many people will see you_. There's no retreat. And when you're especially weird, there's no camouflage either. You wanna pretend you didn't write this fic? When no one else has ever mentioned these characters on the entire internet but you? Or maybe you want to speak up and share the experiences that made you like this. Good luck doing that on your problematic rape porn Twitter, because the warnings you put up are the first thing normal people see when they look at you. Make a third account, maybe, and become a faceless nobody whose opinion doesn't matter. If you have the energy to maintain three identities and never let anything slip that links one to another—now you can really have it all!

There is no sense anymore of wanting to protect fandom from prying eyes, even the parts of it you find disgusting. Fandom is mainstream. Articles about fan communities in the press are no longer openly sneering. Every movie is about people dressing up in costumes to fight crime. The whole world is in fandom. And the fandom freaks are freaks among the whole world.

What can you say to defend yourself when anything you might say becomes a joke at your expense? _Yes, what I write means a lot to me. I don't have much else. It took me too long to figure out why fandom made everything easier, and now it's all I have. No, I don't have a real sex life. Or a social life. No, I'm not like you. I'm not like most people. I don't want to explain why. I wish I could take back a lot of things I shared with the internet, and I don't want to share more._

No one will ever forgive you for making them embarrassed because they can't understand you. If you dare to have been turned into someone fundamentally Weird because of what was done to you, it's your fault forever for not being normal. If you feel scared, you must be taking things too seriously. You always did take things too seriously. You've heard that a lot. Fandom is fundamentally unreal, and you're foolish for thinking it matters, and the fiction you write in fandom is real. When you're a freak, your feelings become dangerous. They might turn normal people into someone like you.

If you have to have feelings about being weird even among the weirdos, they're to be kept to yourself. Write it down and then burn it, if you absolutely have to put it into words. If you're desperate to leave a mark on the world, in the only space you have left, it should be the mark of someone else. Someone who lived the kind of life that produces normal people. Imagine a normal person for long enough, having healthy feelings about sex, and maybe you'll turn into one. And if you don't, it doesn't matter. Fandom and writing and creative pursuits exist so freaks can heal themselves into normal people, and so normal people never have to be reminded that there's another way to be. Like the little boy from **The Babadook** , you were the real monster all along. There never would've been a problem to start with if you could _just be normal._


End file.
